Article Writing Guidelines

This is a short guide to help you with the format for submission of articles and guest posts for Australia Counselling.

Writing articles is an effective way to market your services and promote your profile on Australia Counselling. Your articles also position you as an expert in your niche or particular area of focus in your clinical work.

When you submit articles to Australia Counselling, we will clearly note that the article is written by you and provide a live back link back to your counselling profile and your website. The counselling profile link will be added by Australia Counselling before your article. You may add the link to your website in your biography, which will be at the end of the article.

Many visitors to the site read articles pertaining to their particular issue. If they read an article by you, it helps build a connection with you, the counsellor, as well as build your credibility as someone who works with this particular issue.

Please follow these article writing guidelines before submitting an article:

Word Count

We accept articles that are 500-1000 words. Articles longer than 1000 words will be considered on merit.

Topics

Please choose a topic from the list of topics already covered on our articles page. Look for the topic subheadings and choose a theme for your article that will fit under one of those subheadings. If your article does not fit in one of the article categories, you may still submit your article and will tag it appropriately.

Also, read some of the articles and blogs on our site to get an idea of the style of writing that we are looking for. Here’s an example of an excellent guest post by an Australia Counselling member: Psychosynthesis: A Psychology for the Soul.

Format

We encourage you to use an informal blogging style when writing your articles. This helps with ease of reading and consumption by the public.

You may include up to 2 links within your article that go to other authoritative sites, or your own site if it’s warranted.

Blogging style has the following features:

Warm, casual and informal writing voice.

Personal language e.g. ‘you’ instead of ‘one’ or ‘people’.

Personal disclosure is permitted (within your comfort zone).

Short, succinct and direct sentence structure.

Short paragraphs with spacing between each paragraph.

One idea per paragraph.

Use subheadings to break up the copy and tell a story.

Use of abbreviations is encouraged e.g that’s, we’re, they’re, it’s.

Use of bullet points to break up the copy.

The use of a compelling headline.

Please AVOID the following:

Long sentences with many ideas.

Long paragraphs or copy that is not broken up.

Use of therapeutic terms, or, if a term is used an explanation is offered.

A distant, impersonal writing style such as read in research papers and reports.

References

References are not required, but they can add credibility and weight to what you are discussing. If you are submitting references at the end of your article, please use APA formatting.

Editing

Australia Counselling reserves the right to edit your article before publication. We optimise all our articles for the search engines and may choose to change the title of your article and/or insert appropriate keywords or keyphrases to improve the SEO. Any changes we make will always be in keeping with the tone and theme of the article. By submitting your article or post, you understand that Australia Counselling has final editorial input.

Biography and photo

You are permitted to have a short biography at the end of your article of up to 150 words. One link to your website or blog is permitted in this bio. You may choose the anchor text that will be the link to your site.

Please also submit a professional head shot to go next to your bio. Amatuer photos will not be accepted.

Submission

Please submit your articles via a Word document or Google document. We aim to review and publish any submissions within 7 days. By submitting your article to Australia Counselling, we ask that you do not publish your article on any other site, including your own blog. However, we encourage you to link to your guest article/post from your own website or blog.

Proof Reading

Please proof read your articles at least twice before sending in your article. Australia Counselling does not have the resources to edit articles that have spelling or grammatical errors. If there are numerous grammatical or spelling errors, we will decline your submission.

Please note, we screen articles based on suitability and standard of writing and submission of an article does not guarantee that it will be published.